Interested Parties Memo: The 15 Ways SCOTUS Could Dismantle or Overturn Roe

TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Andrew Everett, Press Officer, Planned Parenthood Action Fund
DATE: Wednesday, September 23, 2020
RE:  The 15 Ways SCOTUS Could Dismantle or Overturn Roe

List of cases updated on May 19, 2021.

Cases One Step Away from the Supreme Court

1. Amy Bryant et al. v. Jim Woodall et al., No. 19-1685 (4th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to a North Carolina twenty-week abortion ban.

2. Planned Parenthood of Maryland, Inc. et al. v. Alex M. Azar II et al., No. 20-2006 (4th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to the Trump administration’s separate-billing rule, which requires insurers offering exchange plans with abortion coverage to bill consumers separately for abortion services.

3. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic et al. v. Alan Wilson et al., No. 21-1369 (4th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban.

4. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Inc. et al. v. Courtney Phillips, No. 18-30699 (5th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenges to Louisiana’s inaction on Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s application for an abortion license and law that prohibits providers from both participating in Medicaid and providing abortions. 

5. Whole Woman’s Health et al. v. Ken Paxton et al., No. 17-51060 (5th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to a Texas law that bans the use of the dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion procedure, the standard abortion procedure used after sixteen weeks of pregnancy.

6. Whole Woman’s Health et al. v. Charles Smith, No. 18-50730 (5th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to a Texas law designed to stigmatize abortion and shame patients who seek abortion services by requiring fetal tissue to be buried or cremated.

7. Memphis Center for Reproductive Health et al. v. Herbert H. Slatery III et al., No. 20-5969 (6th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to a broad Tennessee law that:

     • Bans abortion at six, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four weeks of pregnancy.

     • The six-week ban takes effect first; if that ban is found unconstitutional, the eight-week ban takes effect; if the eight-week ban is found unconstitutional, the ten-week ban takes effect; and so on. 

     • Bans abortion if a provider learns the reason for seeking abortion services is based on the fetus’s sex or race, or diagnosis of Down Syndrome.

8. Bristol Regional Women’s Health Center, P.C. et al. v. Herbert H. Slatery III et al., No. 20-6267 (6th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to a Tennessee law forcing patients to delay care for forty-eight hours after receiving state-mandated information from an abortion provider.

9. Planned Parenthood of Indiana & Kentucky, Inc. v. Kristina Box et al., No. 17-2428 (7th Cir.)

   • Description: Challenge to Indiana law putting minors in harm’s way by requiring parents of minors who have already been adjudged mature enough to have an abortion on their own to notify a parent before they can obtain an abortion.

10. Planned Parenthood of Indiana & Kentucky, Inc. v. Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health et al., No. 20-2407 (7th Cir.)

    • Description: Challenge to Indiana law requiring physicians to report “all abortion complications,” of which many are confusing, vague, or completely normal and not threatening to the health of the patient.

11. Frederick W. Hopkins et al. v. Larry Jegley et al., No. 21-1068 (8th Cir.)

    • Description: Challenge to four Arkansas abortion restrictions, including a ban on the use of the D&E procedure, the standard abortion procedure used after sixteen weeks of pregnancy.

12. Little Rock Family Planning Services et al. v. Leslie Rutledge et al., No. 19-2690 (8th Cir.)

    • Description: Challenge to three Arkansas abortion restrictions, including an eighteen-week abortion ban and a ban on abortion if a provider learns the reason for seeking abortion services is because of a diagnosis of Down syndrome.

13.  Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region et al. v. Michael Parson et al., No. 19-2882 (8th Cir.)

    • Description: Challenge to a Missouri law that: 

      • Bans abortions after eight, fourteen, eighteen, and twenty weeks of pregnancy. 

      • The eight-week ban takes effect first; if that ban is found unconstitutional, the fourteen-week ban takes effect; if the fourteen-week ban is found unconstitutional, the eighteen-week ban takes effect; and so on.

      • Bans abortion if a provider learns the reason for seeking abortion services is based on the fetus’s sex or race, or diagnosis of Down syndrome.

14. Reproductive Health Services et al. v. Daryl Bailey et al., No. 17-13561 (11th Cir.)

    • Description: Challenge to part of an Alabama parental-consent law requiring that the court allow the district attorney and minor’s parents to participate in judicial bypass proceedings, putting minors in an abusive household at risk.

15. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective et al. v. Kemp et al., No. 20-13024-G (11th Cir.)

    • Description: Challenge to a Georgia six-week abortion ban.